OR WEEKLY ABSTRACT OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. VOL. I. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1833. NATURAL HISTORY. THE MIND AND ITS FACULTIES. NO. 22. The term MIND has been lately applied by philoso-more from each other than in their memories. Some phers to the intellectual portion of man, as being a more correct term than either soul or understanding. It implies that part of our being which is occupied in thought. The seat of the mind is manifestly the brain; but in what part of it, whether the whole, or in the pineal gland, as Des Cartes maintains, where he says all the nerves terminate, or whether, as Soemmering states, the fluid contained in the ventricles of the brain be its seat, is unknown, all such opinions being mere conjectures. The mind or soul has been usually divided into a certain number of faculties. We shall consider it from its more simple to its more complex state. The commonest and simplest impression made upon the mind being conveyed to it by either of the senses, is called weak, there the intellect will be found weak; where the memory is good, there, in general, will the intellect be powerful. In nothing, however, do individuals differ remember one kind of facts and things well, while others remember them very indifferently. This has been attributed by phrenologists to the activity and size of particular organs in the brain; and it seems to us probable that there may be some truth in this, indeed, phrenologists assign to the memory many organs of the brain, such as those of form, size, weight, color, space, order, time, number, tune, languge. But whatever truth there may be in this, we believe that more depends upon the exercise of the mind in any given course, than on the original conformation; that, in order to make the memory efficient, it must be often exercised on any given subject; and that the most important knowledge, if not occasionally revived by repetition, will frequently vanish from the mind. The notion of the mind being a storehouse, and that ideas once deposited there will always there remain, is extremely fallacious. It is true they frequently do so, especially those received in youth; but many of these, without repetition, become in time obliterated. Hence, therefore, the necessity of not only the processes of EDUCATION to improve the memory, but of an occasional repetition of them, in order that they may be efficient and useful to us in after life. Recollection is that part of the memory which consists in calling up in the mind the knowledge which has been previously impressed upon it. Attention and repetition help much to fix ideas in the memory; the ideas which make the most lasting impressions are those accompanied by pleasure or pain. SENSATION. Sensation is either pleasurable or painful; in proportion to the degree of pleasure or of pain produced by a sensation, will be the vividness of its apprehension by the mind, An apprehended sensation is termed PERCEPTION; that is, when the mind itself perceives, it recognizes the sensation,-when it becomes the subject of thought in the mind, it is then called perception. An IDEA is a resemblance or image of any thing, which, though not seen, is conceived,apprehended by the mind;-an idea appears to be, therefore, nothing more than a well-defined and apprehended perception. An idea may be simple or complex, true or false. Simple ideas are those which arise in the mind from sensation; as those of color by the eye, of sounds by the ear, of heat by the touch, &c. Some ideas are formed by sensation and reflection jointly, as plea-lar subjects are astonishingly great. Seneca says that sure, pain, power, existence. Complex ideas are infinite; some are not supposed to exist by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on or affections of substantives, as triangle, gratitude, murder, &c. Combinations of simple ideas are such as a dozen, à score, beauty, theft, &c. The association of ideas, and consequently of affections, is one of the most important characters of the human mind, and the great source of our happiness or misery. The powers of memory of some persons for particu he was able, by the mere effort of his natural memory, to repeat two thousand words upon once hearing them, each in its order, though they had no connexion with each other. He also mentions that Portius Latro retained in his memory all the declamations which he had ever spoken, and never found his memory fail in a single word. Cyneas, ambassador to the Romans from king Pyrrhus, had in one day so well learned the names of his spectators, that on the next, he saluted the whole name. Pliny says, Cyrus knew every soldier in his army by name, and L. Scipio, all the people of Rome. Carneades would repeat any volume found in the libraries as readily as if he were reading. Many modern instances of the great powers of memory might be also adduced, but they do not appear necessary. In tracing the process of the human mind in acquir-senate, and all the populace assembled, each by his ing knowledge, we observe the following curious analogies or gradations; it commences with a simple idea or thought impressed, which is connected with simple perception. This solicits attention, which, according to its degrees of importance, disposes to observation, consideration, investigation, contemplation, meditation, reflection. These voluntary operations of the mind are necessary to the formation of clear conceptions, right understanding, an enlarged comprehension of some subjects, nice discernment, and accurate discrimination concerning others; these acquisitions enable us to abstract essential qualities in our minds from the subjects in which they are seated, to assemble others in new combinations, to reason, to draw inferences, and finally, to judge or decide on their merits or defects. MEMORY is that quality of the mind by which it is enabled to call up, generally at will, and upon suitable occasions, ideas, trains of thought which have been previously impressed upon it. No intellectual process can be carried on without memory; where the memory is IMAGINATION is that particular state or disposition of the mind by which it is enabled to form numberless new and extraordinary ideas, which are not the immediate result of external impressions or of recollection, and hence is obviously distinguished from perception and memory. By the imagination, an individual creates thoughts entirely his own, and which never might have existed, had they not occurred to the individual mind. The exercise of most of the other qualities of the mind requires calmness and composure. The imagination delights in the most heterogeneous and incoherent combinations, and the most extravagant circumstances. These visions or phantoms are nevertheless sometimes impressed upon the memory, and during imperfect or dis turbed sleep present themselves, and produce those ab- | white is not black, and that three are more than two. This part of knowledge is irresistible, and on intuition depends all the certainty of our other knowledge. When the mind is obliged to discover the agreement or disagreement of our ideas by the intervention of other ideas, this is what is called reasoning. Again. Knowledge includes, of course, all which we can know. It has been also divided into useful and luxurious knowledge. The best knowledge is that which enables us to act most virtuously, because virtue is the foundation of genuine happiness. Learning, properly so called, is not essential to a virtuous life, although considerable knowledge most undoubtedly is so; for ignorance is, in innumerable instances, the parent of error and of crime. A prudent choice in our pursuit of knowledge is, however, necessary, in order that we may avoid an idle and useless or pernicious waste of time. ASTRONOMY. DIVISION OF THE STARS INTO CONSTELLATIONS. THE division of the stars into various CONSTELLATIONS was an invention indispensably necessary, and was adopted in the earliest ages, for the purpose of communicating ideas and intelligence on subjects of general interest, particularly such as related to the pastoral and Twelve Signs of the Zodiac significantly named accordagricultural employments; accordingly we find the GENIUS is, in numerous instances, allied to the imagination. It consists in that natural talent, disposition, or aptitude which one man possesses of performing something in preference to another, with peculiar facility and excellence. Thus men are said to have a genius for painting, poetry, music, &c. meaning, that the powers of their minds enable them to excel in those particular departments. Although, perhaps, minute attention to the genius of each individual is not, in a social and moral view, necessary in the education of youth, we believe, nevertheless, that some attention to this subject is absolutely necessary, in order to effectuate the best developement of the character. And while we cannot avoid admiring genius, we ought never to forget that its best exemplification is when combined with moral, useful, and virtuous actions; that true genius, real science, and rationality, ought to be inseparable companions. REASON; that process of the mind by which dif-ing to the sense and experience of the people by whom ferent ideas or things are compared, their fitness or unfitness perceived, and conclusions drawn from such comparisons and perceptions. Judgment is a similar operation of the mind; but, as its name imports, it is that act of the mind by which it concludes and determines upon certain final results. Thus we compare the sun and the moon, and finding the sun greater than the moon, we determine or judge accordingly. they were invented. Those constellations were not all The CHALDEANS, who are commonly represented as the parents and inventors of ASTRONOMY, knew nothing The WILL is a state or disposition of the mind conof some of the signs now marked out on the ecliptic: sisting in being disposed, willing, to do or avoid any act, they had at first observed the extreme points of the or to obtain or avoid any thing. The state or disposi-SUN's departure or declination from the Equator, or tion of the mind called the will, is produced by innumerable agencies. Some of these arise from the internal feeling of the mind itself; others from external objects, as heat, light, cold, human society, our affections, our hopes, our pleasures and our pains; others from an association of internal feeling with external objects; and hence the incalculable varieties of human actions. GHOST; a spirit or apparition of some deceased son. per The ancients supposed every man had three different ghosts, which, after the dissolution of the body, were variously disposed of. They were distinguished into manes, spiritus, umbra; the manes they supposed went to the infernal regions; the spiritus ascended to the skies; and the umbra hovered about the tomb, as unwilling to quit its old connexions. what we now call the Solstices, and thus named the two signs or constellations CANCER and CAPRICORN, from the properties of those animals, which in their habits ed MACROBIUS, in his treatise de Saturnalia,* Book 1st, bore resemblance to the course of the Sun. The learnChap. 17, defines the fact as follows: 66 These are the motives that occasioned the two signs which we call the doors of the barriers of the SUN to go by the names of CANCER and CAPRICORN. The Crab the Sux likewise arriving at this sign begins his retroor Cancer is an animal that walks backward, or obliquely; gradation, and again descends obliquely. As to the Wild Goat, or Capricorn, its way of feeding is always to ascend and climb the hills as it feeds on the grass; the SUN in like manner being come to Capricorn, begins to quit the lowest point of its course, in order to regain the highest." In quitting this subject it may be observed, that when the mind turns inward, thinking is the first operation that occurs; and in this we may observe a great variety The ancient astronomers of Chaldea knew nothing of of modifications, and whence it frames to itself distinct the third sign in the ZODIAC, which we call GEMINI or ideas. Thus, the perception annexed to anyimpression on the Twins: that asterism in their division of the Sun's the body by an external object is called sensation. When path, was filled with the figure of two kids, a resemblance an idea occurs without the presence of the object, it is drawn in this instance, like all others, from the herds or called remembrance; when sought for by the mind, and cattle of which they had the care, this period being the brought again to review this process, it is called recol-yeaning time of their flocks, many of which brought lection; when the ideas are attempted to be registered forth twins. In short, the whole of their astronomical in the memory, it is attention; and when the mind consystem was such as applied to their convenience, and siders any subject in a variety of views, successively tions and wanderings; for their lives being spent in the was sufficient to guide and direct them in their occupadwelling upon each, it is called study. wide and open country, they had nothing to point out their way in travelling but the fixed STARS: yet ASTRONOMY as a science made but little progress, extending only to their convenience in the affairs of life: the EGYPTIANS enlarged and improved that into a science which the CHALDEES had not studied as a grand object KNOWLEDGE, therefore, from this short view of the mind, it will be seen, arises from those impressions and ideas which we receive by the medium of the senses. We can have no knowledge further than we have ideas. A man may be said to know all those truths which are lodged in his memory by a previous, clear, and full perception. In intuitive knowledge, the mind perceives the truth as the eye does light; thus the mind perceives that habitants of the Earth in honour of the God SATURN or TIME. of philosophy and learning: it was from this people, whose hieroglyphical and symbolical mode of representation gave the example, that the GREEKS derived the plan of assorting the STARS, and probably the invention of LETTERS. The GREEKS found it necessary to cultivate this science on account of their commercial affairs, as well as their avidity in the pursuit of all wisdom. NAVIGATION required some certain and specific method of conducting their vessels with safety on their voyages, and the stars offered the best means for that purpose. The ARGONAUTS had no other guides for their sea voyages. From the GREEKS, this sublime science, as well as most others, was communicated to the ROMANS, and they extended it with their conquests to all the nations of the world at that time discovered; but the true knowledge of our planetary system and the philosophy of the HEAVENS were still imperfect, notwithstanding the theories of PTOLEMY, PYTHAGORAS, COPERNICUS, and others; partly from the want of telescopes to make more accurate observations than they were enabled to do, and partly from the errors of their conjectural ideas upon the subject. Modern philosophers, and particularly SIR ISAAC NEWTON, have carried their inquiries to a great extent; but, aided by superior optical instruments, further discoveries and more enlarged notions respecting the "System of the Universe" are necessarily taking place. We shall never be able to complete the study. How far ingenuity and perception may go in the progress of man's increasing intelligence is not to be anticipated; but of this we may be sure, that there is an everlasting space for the exercise of the mental faculties which has no termination.-Guide to Knowledge. MATTHEW HOPKINS, THE WITCHFINDER. THIS "worthy" of witchcraft flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the delusions † ARGONAUTS, so called from the ship Argos, in which JASON and his companions sailed to Cholchis to fetch away the Golden Fleece; no doubt a commercial speculation or discovery, however it may be disguised by the allegorical description or fabulous adventure to which it has han carihed of the witching frauds were at their full height. He assumed the title of witchfinder general, and travelling through the counties of Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Huntingdon, pretended to discover witches, superintending their examination by the most unheard of tortures, and compelling forlorn and miserable creatures to admit and confess matters equally absurd and impossible; the admission of which was the forfeiture of their lives. Sir Walter Scott describes Hopkins as follows:"He was, perhaps, a native of Manningtree, in Essex; at any rate, he resided there in the year 1644, when an epidemic outcry of witchcraft arose in that town. Upon this occasion he had made himself busy, and affecting more zeal and knowledge than other men, learned his. trade of a witchfinder, as he pretended, from experiment. He was afterwards permitted to perform it as a legal profession, and moved from one place to another, with an assistant named Sterne, and a female. In his defence against an accusation of fleecing the country, he declares his regular charge was twenty shillings a town, including charges of living, and journeying thither and back again with his assistants. He also affirms, that he went nowhere unless called and invited. His principal mode of discovery was, to strip the accused persons naked, and thrust pins into various parts of their body, to discover the witch's mark, which was supposed to be inflicted by the devil as a sign of his sovereignty, and at which she was also said to suckle her imps. He also practised and stoutly defended the trial by swimming, when the suspected person was wrapt in a sheet, having the great toes and thumbs tied together, and so dragged through a pond or river. If she sank, it was received in favour of the accused; but if the body floated, (which must have occurred ten times for once if it was placed with care on the surface of the water,) the accused was condemned, on the principle of King James, who, in treating of this mode of trial, lays down that as witches have renounced their baptism, so it is just that the element through which the holy rite is enforced should reject them; which is a figure of speech, and no argument. It was Hopkins's custom to keep the poor wretches waking, in order to prevent them from having encouragement from the devil, and, doubtless, to put infirm, terrified, over-watched persons in the next state to absolute madness; and for the same purpose, they were dragged about by their keepers, till extreme weariness and the pain of blistered feet might form additional inducements to confession, Hopkins confesses that these last practices of keeping the accused persons waking and forcing them to walk for the same purpose, had been originally used by him." "At length the popular indignation was so strongly excited against Hopkins, that some country gentlemen seized on him, and put him to his own favourite experiment of swimming, on which, as he happened to float, he stood convicted of witchcraft, and so the country was rid of him. Whether he was drowned outright or not does not exactly appear; but he has had the honour to be commemorated by the author of Hudibras :- Hath not this present parliament And has he not within a year Hang'd threescore of them in one shire? And some for sitting above ground Whole days and nights upon their breeches, And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches. And some for putting knavish tricks There are some men whose enemies ap pe pitied much, and their friends more.-Lacon. EARTHQUAKES IN SICILY AND IN THE TWO The accounts from Sicily were of a most alarming nature. The greatest part of the fine city of Messina was destroyed by the shock of the 5th of February, and what remained was greatly injured by the subsequent shocks. The quay in the port had sunk considerably, and was in some places more than a foot beneath the water. The superb building called the Palazzata, which gave the port a more magnificent appearance than any other in Europe could boast, was entirely thrown down, and the lazaretto greatly damaged. The citadel suffered little, but the cathedral was destroyed, and the tower at the point of the entrance of the harbour much damaged. The wave which had done so much mischief at Scylla, had passed over the point of land at the Faro, and swept away twenty-four persons. The accounts from Melazzo, Patti, Terra di Santa Lucia, Castro Reale, and from the island of Lipari, were very distressing; but the damages done there by the earthquakes were not so considerable as at Messina. Sir William Hamilton, from the limited boundaries of these earthquakes, was persuaded that they were caused by some great operation of nature of a volcanic kind. To ascertain this, he began his tour by visiting the parts of the coasts of the two Calabrias which had suffered most from this severe visitation. He every where came to ruined towns and houses, the inhabitants of which were in sheds, many of them built on such insalubrious spots that an epidemic had ensued. These unfortunate people agreed that every shock they had felt seemed to come with a rumbling noise from the westward, beginning usually with the horizontal motion, and ending with the vortical or whirling motion, which last had ruined most of the buildings. It had also been generally observed, that before a shock, the clouds seemed to be fixed and motionless; and that after a heavy shower of rain, a shock quickly followed. From Monteleone, Sir William descended into the plain, and passed many towns and villages in a ruined state the city of Mileto, lying in a bottom, was totally destroyed, without a house standing. Among the many examples afforded by these earthquakes of animals being able to live a long time without food, was that of two hogs, which had remained buried under a heap of ruins at Soriano for forty-two days, and were dug out alive. In every ruined town he visited, an interesting remark was made to him, namely, that the male dead were generally found under the ruins in the attitude of struggling against the danger, but that the attitude of the females was usually with the hands clapsed over the head, as if giving themselves up to despair, unless they had children near them: in this case they were always found clasping them in their arms, or in some attitude which indicated their anxious care to protect them. How striking an instance of maternal tenderness! Having walked over the ruins of Oppido, Sir William descended into the ravine, which he carefully examined. Here he saw the wonderful force of the earthquake, which had produced exactly the same effects as in the ravine of Terra Nuova, but on a scale infinitely greater. The enormous masses of the plain, detached from each side of the ravine, lay in confused heaps, forming real mountains; and, having stopped the course of two rivers, great lakes were formed. The Prince of Cariati showed him two girls, one of the age of about sixteen years, who had remained eleven days without food under the ruins of a house in Oppido; and the other, about eleven years of age, who had been under the same circumstance six days, but in a very confined and distressing posture. Sir William describes the port of Messina and the town in their half-ruined state, when viewed by moonlight, as strikingly picturesque. On landing, he was assured by several fishermen, that, during the earthquake of the 5th of February, at night, the sand near the sea was hot, and that in many parts they saw fire issue from the earth. This had been often repeated to him in the Calabrian plain. The force of the earthquakes, although very violent at Messina, and at Reggio on the opposite side of the strait, was not to be compared to that which was felt in the plain. In the former city, the mortality did not exceed seven hundred, of a population of thirty thousand. A curious circumstance happened there also, to prove, that animals can sustain life for a long time without food. Two mules belonging to the Duke of Belviso remained under a heap of ruins, the one twenty-two and the other twenty-three days: for some days after they refused their food, but drank plentifully, and finally recovered. There were numberless instances of dogs emaining many days in the same situation; and a hen, belonging to the British Vice Consul, having been closely shut up beneath the ruins of his house, was taken out on the twenty-second day, and recovered, although at first it showed but little signs of life: like the mules, it did not eat for some days, but drank freely. From these instances, and from those above related, of the girls at Oppido, and the hogs at Soriano, as well as from several others of the same kind, it may be concluded that long fasting is always attended with great thirst, and a total loss of appetite. The Commandant of the Citadel of Messina assured him, that on the fatal 5th of February, and the three following days, the sea at the distance of about a quarter of a mile from that fortsess rose and boiled in a most extraordinary manner, and with a horrid and alarming noise, while the water in the other parts of the Faro was | perfectly calm. This appeared to him to point out exhalations or eruptions from cracks at the bottom of the sea, which were probably made during the violence of the earthquakes; and to these phenomena he ascribes a volcanic origin. He thus attempts to explain the nature of the formidable wave which was represented as boiling hot, and which, as has been already noticed, was so fatal to the inhabitants of Scylla. Spallanzani, who visited Messina nearly six years afterwards, found the city still a mass of ruins, and the streets, except some of the principal ones, impassable; the inhabitants had begun to rebuild their dwellings, and that on an improved plan, better calculated to obviate the effects of such another visitation; but even at that distance of time, he describes them as hardly recovered from their consternation, and still chiefly residing in the temporary wooden sheds they had erected in the neighbourhood for shelter after the catastrophe. REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS, AT PUZZUOLI. Our readers will not be sorry to have this catalogue | of horrors interrupted by an account of a curious induction made by men of science from some facts which might not appear worthy of notice to common observers, but yet lead to very convincing proofs of effects, of the causes of which no other records are handed down to us. An examination of the Bay of Baie had led to a conclusion that an elevation of this coast to a height of twenty feet had been produced by some earthquake at no very remote period; but the evidence of this was not so conclusive as to induce all to acquiesce in the opinion. The remains of an ancient building commonly called the Temple of Serapis, however, furnished the deficient corroboration of this fact. These ruins were not discovered till 1750, on the removal of some rubbish and bushes, which had, till then, partly concealed them from observatien. They were found to constitute part of a splendid edifice, the pavement of which was still preserved It had been of a quadrangular form, and the roof supported by forty-six columns of granite, or marble, remains of which were lying on the ground, and three only left standing, which are forty-two feet in height. To the distance of about twelve feet from their bases, the surface of these is quite smootu and uninjured; above, for another space of twelve feet, the marble has been pierced and corroded by a species of shell-fish well-known, the remains of which are found at the bottoms of the perforations they had made; and the depth and size of these proved that the columns had been long exposed to their attacks. Hence it appeared, that while the lower part of these pillars had been protected by being buried in rubbish or earth, the sea had surround ed them to a depth of twelve feet at least; and the upper part, having been exposed to the air, was weatherworn accordingly. The columns which are overturned on the floor of the building, are corroded in the same way in parts which had been exposed to the sea-water, and consequently to these animals. But as the temple could not, for obvions reasons, have been originally |